Toxicodendron Radicans [Sonnet 1

toks-ee-ko-DEN-dron RAD-ee-kans

There’s ivy growing in my head, pushing out against my skull. Cracking it, one leaf tentatively reaches for the sunlight before the rest burst through. I have migraines

that not even Eve can alleviate, no matter how much she wishes to pluck these leaves. My mother gave up long ago; the pink blisters swallowing her hands whole.

Ideas turn to soil—words decompose as the ivy’s poison seeps into grey matter. Eaten alive. Lobotomize me with herbicides, becoming Eden:

root my mind in unimaginable perfection. Cast away all its toxins.